Tag: George Sotiropoulos

Everyone’s doing their part to bolster interest in this card. Dana’s doling out title shots again, Rivera’s gone to Broadway, even the mostly-beloved Octagon girls are pitching in. But beyond loose promises and tight bikinis, this card has meaning. Many of tonight’s combatants are fighting for far more than just another notch in the win-column. Let’s take a look at what’s really on the table tonight in Australia.

Jon Fitch:A legend on his decision-list and a title shot, maybe. Fitch is a good fighter, no doubt, and his victories over tough competition reflect that. What you won’t find on his record, however, is a win over a legend. If Fitch is able to capitalize on his size advantage and use his wrestling skills to wear on Penn, that could change tonight. Win streaks are nice, but every fighter wants a trophy head for their mantle, and few have a name as respected in this sport as BJ Penn. Regarding that title shot, as Fitch has learned before, those things are somewhat fickle. An exciting win could very well earn him a five-rounder, but–as affectionate nicknames like “Smoke Break” and “Yaaaawn Fitch” allude—exciting fights can be hard to come by.

It’s that old gambler’s dilemma: There are a bunch of fairly big time dogs on the card at this Saturday’s UFC 127 … which means there are also a bunch of guys who are probably not going to win their fights. The numbers are what they are (read: juicy) precisely to make our betting fingers itchy, to make us consider throwing down on dudes we normally wouldn’t give a second look. When it’s all said and done though, what good is an underdog if he doesn’t have a chance to actually win? At times like this, it’s imperative that we don’t let our own greed so cloud our mindbrains that we lose sight of reality. Wheat from chaff, people, wheat from chaff.

Luckily for you (and our many, many creditors) we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if deep down we didn’t believe we were smarter than the bookies. At least in the weird, fringe backwater that is MMA betting. Yep, we’ve pretty much got UFC 127 dialed in. After the jump, we share our get-rich quick scheme. All listed odds are from Sportsbook.com. Why? Because those dudes might actually pay you if you win.

Often when hyping an upcoming bout or angling for a title shot, fighters will oversell their skill sets and inflate their accomplishments, so it’s no surprise that a middle of the pack UFC lightweight like Dennis Siver would follow suit, especially when his next bout is against a guy like George Sotiropoulos, who is likely one or two wins away from a title shot.

Siver did an interview recently with Tapology and said that he is planning on choking out the decorated Aussie BJJ black belt if their UFC 127 bout hits the mat — a lofty endeavor, considering G-Sots has never been finished in his MMA career and has notched eight of his 14 wins via submission. Siver, on the other hand is 7-4 when his fights finish on the mat and has never faced a grappler of Sotiropoulos’ caliber.

"It’s a very exciting fight. Anthony Pettis has a lot of hype around him right now. He’s a very advertised fighter. The kick heard around the world. ‘Showtime’ is gonna be ‘No Time’ once I get in there. I’m really excited about it. [He's a] very tough kid, but the WEC and the UFC merger is gonna show you what the UFC’s all about."

With the holidays nearly upon us and your work week winding down, we figured we’d give you something to do while you drink your bourbon spiked coffee alone in your office today.

This is our twelfth and final episode of the year, but it’s a good one.

Besides our "expert" breakdown of UFC 125, we opened the phone lines up again for this show to hear from the Potato Nation one last time before heading into 2011.

At approximately the :79 minute mark (for those of you who can’t stand our hodgepodge of Canadian and American accents) UFC lightweight contender George Sotiropoulos stops by to talk about a number of topics, including his upcoming fight with Dennis Siver at UFC 127, the lightweight title bout between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard coming up on New Year’s day, the hate towards 10th Planet jiu-jitsu and the controversy surrounding his competition legwear.

*We apologize in advance for a fragment of latent audio from a past episode that somehow made it into the intro by Ben when he’s talking about our pal Dallas Winston. We’re in the process of uploading the new version of the show with the soundbite removed, but it likely will take an hour or so to complete the process.

As always, we suggest that you subscribe to The Bum Rush on iTunes if for nothing else but simplicity’s sake, but if you’re still against all things Apple, you can download the episode by right-clicking HERE.

In case you’ve been wondering, we haven’t abandoned the live, interactive editions of The Bum Rush, we’ve just been trying to figure out how to fix all of the audio issues we’ve encountered since we began using Talkshoe.

Since you’ve been asking about when we’re going to include the Potato Nation in another podcast, we figured we’d make our last episode of the year an interactive one so we can drink rum and eggnog and shoot the shit with our homies during the holidays.

You can listen to live, HERE at 5:30 pm ET tomorrow and then check back in on Thursday for bonus taped interviews added to the show with UFC lightweight George Sotiropoulos and Nemesis fighter Chris McNally.If you want to call in and participate in the show, follow these instructions:

Dial (724) 444-7444 Enter: 89629 # (Call ID) Enter: 1 # or your PIN if you have a Talkshoe account. We will be notified that you are in the queue to talk with us.

CagePotato.com has learned from a source close to the fight that a middleweight bout between The Ultimate Fighter 11 standout Nick Ring (10-0) and Kazuo Misaki’s Grabaka teammate, Riki Fukuda (17-4) has been signed for UFC 127 February 27 in Sydney, Australia.

The fight will be the first for Ring since the undefeated Canadian notched a majority decision win over eventual TUF 11 winner Court McGee while filming the show in January. After the bout, Ring, who had been competing with a lingering knee injury, was forced to pull out of the competition due to a torn ACL which would require surgery. The favorite to win the competition, the 30-year-old has been rehabbing the joint since having it surgically repaired in April and has been training in Montreal at Tristar Gym with fellow UFC fighters, welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and longtime training partner Rory MacDonald.

Fukuda, who, like Ring, will also be making his Octagon debut at the event down under, is the DEEP middleweight champion and has not lost since 2008. An EliteXC and DREAM veteran, his most notable victory is a unanimous decision he won over Murilo "Ninja" Rua at DREAM 8 in 2009. The 29-year-old native of Tokyo who has only been finished once in his career surprised many when he took veteran Joe Doerksen to a decision in his first bout in 2004.